Steven Greydanus Reviews "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" and Hates It
It's official.
"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" is complete crap, and the reviews of the movie by Steven Greydanus are here and here to prove it.
Victor Morton hated it, too, noting that the movie begins with a lie and ends with a lie.
And I'm guessing there are lots of lies in the intervening 2 hours, as well.
UPDATE (18 October)
Mark Shea had these interesting comments about this exercise in hero-worship of the so-called "Virgin Queeen":
The triumph of the Anglican monarchy over the Church and the people of England is best described, I think, as a the revolt of the rich and powerful against the poor. It is one of the greatest examples of Stockholm Syndrome in history that, at this late date, the consolidation of power, the theft of so much property that had once been common, and the enslavement of so many poor people in the service of the Tudors and their group of toadies should *still* be portrayed by Hollywood as a glorious triumph of liberation.It is interesting that characters - namely Henry Tudor and his bastard daughter Elizabeth - who normally would be considered villains under any other circumstances are deemed praiseworthy by the elites solely because they "stuck it to the Catholic Church".
Imagine if Hillary Clinton, say, should deliberately cultivate a cult of worship by identifying herself with the Blessed Virgin Mary while systematically despoiling hospitals, food banks, and homeless shelters to enrich herself and her cronies. Then imagine the children of the victims of her depredations adoring her for it and telling stories of the monsters who used to share their food and educate their parents. That's more or less the history of post-Elizbethan English Protestantism and this movie continues that marvelous triumph of Big Brother Love.
Labels: Anti-Catholicism, Culture, England, History, Religious Persecution
posted by Pro Ecclesia 2:08 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Probably not wise to comment on this without bothering to read the linked reviews or having seen the movie myself, but after having caught part of a commercial for it I could tell it was awful. Any movie about Elizabeth that is not marketed as a horror flick can't be good.
Now if they released it at this time of year and was titled Bloody Bess: The Golden Butcher, then it might be worthwhile. It would be good marketing too, because they would have a ready made sequel. They could call it something like The Wrath of Bloody Bess. And the possibilities for taglines are endless...
Any movie about Elizabeth that is not marketed as a horror flick can't be good.
ELIZABETH: L'AGE D'OR actually DOES use a score of horror-movie style tropes -- pounding score, portentous camera angles, people yelling in a cavernous space, disfigured villains slinking among shadows. It's just that ... well ... the Church is Satan.
And thanks, Jay, for linking. I also agree with everything Steve said.
Yeah Victor, but that wasn't really what I had in mind. ;)
After I posted that, I clicked through and read the reviews. Needless to say, I'll take your word for it and not bother watching it.
Considering how bad the first movie was, I never imagined this sequel might be any good.
Heh.
From the mouth of Hillary:
So what do we do? We have to build a political consensus. And that requires people to give up a little bit of their own turf in order to create this common ground.
"(We)...can't just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people."
"We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."
Couple that with Hillary's deification by the MSM and I think we need to question whether Mark Shea merely created an analogy or stumbled upon a reality...
It is interesting that characters - namely Henry Tudor and his bastard daughter Elizabeth - who normally would be considered villains under any other circumstances are deemed praiseworthy by the elites solely because they "stuck it to the Catholic Church".
(Emphases mine.)
Hardly.
James VI/I and Oliver Cromwell "stuck it to the Church" just as hard, but are not customarily numbered among Britain's better rulers.
Henry VIII and Elizabeth I have their place in history and popular imagination for reasons of nationalism and (more so in Elizabeth's case) cultural achievements than for anti-Catholicism specifically. Nation-building in Britain's case almost always involved that, true. But the latest Elizabeth film aside, it has been much commoner to sweep historical facts under the rug, or historicize them in various ways, or acknowledge them as an unfortunate necessity.
And now that I think about it, Henry VIII's portrayal in Official British History (or at least what I learned as a wee lad) *as a king* was decidedly mixed, and his profligacy and brutality duly noted (while often being explained via his "lusty" or "hearty bon vivant" personality). But his ... um ... marital discord provided a compelling "personal" narrative far beyond what any other British monarch has really had, and this was what has held him in the popular imagination for a half-millennium. (Until Charles III takes the throne, Henry will remain the only divorced British monarch.)
It's just a MOVIE, folks, lighten up, ok? I'm a Catholic too and I don't give a damn. This Catholic fanaticism sickens me just as much as John Knox's obsessive protestantism. Elizabeth I. was a great queen. If you must bash someone, bash her sister Mary for burning pregnant women.
"Any movie about Elizabeth that is not marketed as a horror flick can't be good."
Such obvious historical ignorance makes me sick. This kind of fanaticism is wrong and I'm glad that the centuries of such beliefs are gone. I am a proud Catholic. But I'll not agree with such radical fanaticism. We Catholics have enough sins to account for, so we shouldn't act all high and mighty.
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